Spurs among league leaders in shoutouts

One of the favorite laments among Spurs faithful is how little attention/respect their favorite NBA team gets around the country.

That does not appear to be the case in the rap arena, where only seven more teams have more individual references in current hip-hop tracks than your San Antonio Spurs.

Not surprising considering Stephen “Stak 5” Jackson’s status as one of the better baller/rappers around. Which isn’t really saying much, but still. And who can forget this? (Thank goodness you have a night job, Tony Parker.)

You’d think an enterprising producer out there would have taken full advantage of Gregg Popovich’s “I want some nasty” sound bite. Alas, 2 Live Crew has been defunct since 1998. And no Matt Bonner? Rap truly isn’t what it used to be.

Even without them, only a handful of other teams are referenced more: Dallas (five), Boston (five), the Lakers (six, including…Chris Duhon?!?), the Clippers (seven), Chicago (seven), the Knicks (seven) and, of course, Miami with a league-high eight.

Side note, I cannot even imagine how one would research a list like this. At least in basketball we have multiple data bases and stats engines to work with. But trolling through the entire rap catalogue for individual NBA references?

Maybe we need to figure out a way to incorporate the the two. Shoutout Efficiency Rating, Shoutouts per 48 minutes…John Hollinger, get on it.